







I 
■ 













■ 

I 






o 











•• \ ft *\.l-* *e 











o • * 



* ^ V 



















*<k 



«£ . I ' » - **^ 



o » a _ Cl 







o 



** .'V 



*f 



0* Or 




-\ ^ ** •!aK* ^ # ** 









r oK : 









* ^ 

F •!••• *> 





> ^f 1 





^ 



v 










• $ *» 










<* ♦*77i» .<G 





-j^ •• » * A 






THE 



"KREUTZER SONATA" 



REVIEWED BY A WOMAN 




Broadway Publishing Company 



835 BROADWAY, NEW YORK 



AT * * » 



Oq-a^Mz^ 



5$ 



THE LIBRARY OF 
CONG RE 

Two Copies Received 

JAr 

Copyright Entry 
CUSS ^ XX©, N*. 
COPY A. 



Copyright 1904, 
by 

ADELAIDE COMSTOCK 



THIS LITTLE VOLUME IS DEDICATED 

TO 

WOMAN EVERYWHERE 

BY 

THE AUTHOR. 
FROM WOMAN TO WOMAN. 



"Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bonds of 
wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens and to let the oppressed go 
free, and that ye break every yoke?"— Isaiah lviii. 6. 

44 A farther advance of civilization would drop our cumbrous modes, 
and leave the social element to be its own law and to obliterate all 
formal bonds." — Emerson. 

44 It is an axiom in science, that nature can only be governed by 
obeying her laws."— Tuttlb. 



PRELUDE. 

"And there appeared a wonder in heaven: A 
woman clothed with the sun!' 

Clothed with the sun, woman, thou yet shalt 

rise and shine, 
Life-giver of the nation, and Queen by right 

divine ! 
The stone the purblind workmen have dishonored 

and defaced 
The Master at his coming will surely fix in place. 
And when he reveals his purpose (from their dull 

vision hid), 
They will cry, "0, Master, spare us ! We knew not 

what we did." 
For lo ! in the revealing the truth shall be made 

known 
That the hitherto rejected was the chief corner 

stone. 



, vi Prelude. 

Behold the Master standing with hand uplifted 
high, 

In majesty declaring, "My purpose shall not lie! 

Nor man's mistake nor cunning shall thwart what 
I have planned, 

For he must aye acknowledge mine is the master- 
hand. 

As brightest gems, though hidden long ages in 
the ground, 

Are brought forth at man's bidding to deck a 
monarch's crown, 

This stone so long rejected, dishonored and de- 
faced, 

Refused in the foundation, shall fill a worthy 
place. 

Aside, ye unskilled neophytes ! and leave this work 
to me, 

Polished and lifted to its place, the keystone it 
shall be 

In the arch of The Grand Tem'ple of Redeemed 
Humanity" 



EXPLANATORY NOTE. 

A review of "Kreutzer Sonata" presented lO 
the public at this time may seem a strange literary 
whim, but this review and criticism was written 
shortly after the first appearance of "Kreutzer So- 
nata" in the United States. It was withheld from 
earlier publication in the hope that some other 
writer, appreciating the truth it was intended to 
convey, and the moral lesson to be drawn there- 
from, might come to the rescue of the noted author 
and advance his effort for good by defending the 
motive that prompted the publication of a work 
which seemed to so shock proprieties that an at- 
tempt was made to strangle it on the threshold 
of public existence. 

Years have passed, however, and except the 
brief comments on its first issuance nothing has 
appeared. But Tolstoi's works will live — and the 
purpose of "Kreutzer Sonata" cannot be ignored. 
We therefore launch our well meaning effort on its 

vii 



viii Explanatory Note. 

mission — which may be but the arousing of public 
controversy on the all-important subject of the 
true relation of man and woman — socially and 
politically. "In multitude of counsellors there 
is safety." (Prov. 24, 6.) 



INTRODUCTION. 

Solomon says, "Of making many books there 
is no end." 

It is not for the sake of launching another bark 
on the sea of literature that the author "of these 
pages has concluded to attempt a brief review of 
that most extraordinary work, the "Kreutzer 
Sonata/' but for a purpose which, she trusts, will 
sufficiently reveal itself in the perusal of these 
pages. 

The book under review is the strange and al- 
most indefinable production of a master-mind. 
For a work of Count Tolstoi's to be menaced at 
the public threshold with suppression on account 
of its indelicacy, seemed preposterous to readers 
of his previous works, especially "My Religion," 
which for purity and elevation of thought could 
scarcely be surpassed. Indeed, it stands almost 
unequalled in its Christ-like ideal of practical re- 
ligious life. Thus, among even the purest minded, 



Introduction. 



there was naturally a desire to know wherein the 
offence lay, or what the mooted subject could be, 
that its fitness for public dissemination should be 
questioned. 

Its title of "Kreutzer Sonata" revealed nothing 
in the way of explanation; the only way to know 
its meaning was to read it. Thus the curious 
public, from the purest minded to the most de- 
praved, so anxiously snatch up the "forbidden 
fruit" that the demand can scarcely be supplied. 
Of course, it is but the sensation of the hour ; as, 
really one would have expected something more 
reasonable and with object more clearly defined 
from a literary genius capable of such sublime con- 
ceptions as we have heretofore considered Tolstoi. 
He might have said all he wished to say, on the 
subject of his scriptural text even, but in a better 
manner. Plain language, but to the point, would 
have been tolerated from his pen on the ground 
of purity of motive. 

But the "Kreutzer Sonata" reminds us of one, 
who, in a fit of desperation throws a bomb into 
a crowd merely to startle and arrest attention and 
then fails to give any satisfactory explanation of 
his motive for doing so. All he can say is, "Some- 
thing is wrong and needs righting." 

The thinking public is well aware of that. The 
unthinking majority — the apathetic crowd — need 



Introduction. xi 

to be startled and aroused. The bomb will have 
its effect. 

So far as man is concerned, let him be his 
own defender. But there is need that some woman 
came forth to the rescue of her sex, and make an 
attempt to put before the public the matter of 
the much misunderstood proper relation of the 
sexes, in a clearer light; and knowing well the 
truth of the old adage, that "The surest way, if 
you want your business done, is to do it yourself," 
I have concluded to act according thereto; and 
shall now apply myself to the task. 

Adelaide Comstock. 

Ventura, Cal., 1890. 



THE "KREUTZER SONATA" 
REVIEWED BY A WOMAN. 



REVIEW. 



The first chapter of "Kreutzer Sonata" may be 
reviewed in few words. The reader is therefore 
introduced at once to the company of railway 
travellers, whose conversation leads to the main 
subject-matter of the work under review. 

The old shopkeeper, who piously crossed him- 
self three times and muttered a prayer before giv- 
ing vent to the expression : "The world is growing 
too learned nowadays," is an illustration of the 
old adage, "If ignorance is bliss 'tis folly to be 



wise." 



With him those were "the good old days" when 
a woman was kept in subjection through fear of 
her husband^ and if she did not love him, to use 



2 The " Kreutzer Sonata M 

his own words, "then she must be made to love 
him/' 

"A husband can always make his wife obey. 
His physical strength will always insure that. It 
is a fool who will let his wife wear the breeches," 
is the old man's argument. "Yes, yes; the femi- 
nine sex must be kept under or there will be no 
peace in the family." 

No wonder that on his leaving the car his travel- 
ling companions gave free expression to their opin- 
ion of him as follows. Which brings us into the 
second chapter. 

"That old fellow," said the drummer, "is a 
patriarch out of the Old Testament." 

"He's a regular Demostray/' said the lady, 
"what antediluvian ideas he has about woman and 
marriage." 

She had tried to reason with the old man, but 
his arbitrary manner of asserting his antiquated 
notions of woman's sphere had caused her to give 
up in disgust. 

"Yes/' observed the lawyer, "we are a long way 
off modern notions yet, at least, in marital affairs. 
The rights of women, free choice and divorce, 
these are questions not settled with us." 

"The most essential of all, and that least under- 
stood by people like that man, is that marriage is 
no marriage except it be consecrated by love." 



Reviewed by a Woman. 3 

This last remark, presumably by the lady, at- 
tracts the attention of a fellow traveller described 
as "the silent and nervous man in the corner/' 
who 'hitherto had taken no part in the conversa- 
tion, but now, unobserved, had approached them, 
and standing with one hand on the seat, appeared 
moved even to excitement as he put the question : 
"What sort of love is it that marriage con- 
secrates P" 

In his earnestness he repeats the question before 
his audience had time to reply. 

The lady is the first to speak. "What love? 
The common love that binds husband and wife." 

"And how can a common love sanctify mar- 
riage?" continued the nervous man, with a dis- 
satisfied air, and looking as if he were going to 
say something unpleasant to the lady, which she 
feels and in her confusion merely replies, "Why, 
easily enough." 

But he will not be put off with that, and makes 
answer, "No, not so easily." 

The lawyer comes to her rescue thus: "Madam 
would say that all marriages ought to be the con- 
sequence of a mutual attachment — of love, if you 
choose to call it so, and that marriage is sacred 
only when love is present. No marriage is obli- 
gatory that is not based on love. Is not that 
your meaning?" he asked the lady. 



4 The " Kreutzer Sonata 

She nodded assent. But the nervous gentleman 
will not be satisfied, and insists on a more definite 
answer to his question, which he now puts in a 
somewhat different form. 

"Yes, yes ! But what are we to understand by 
this love that alone consecrates marriage?" 

And so the discussion goes on. 

"Everybody knows what love is," said the lady. 

"I don't, and I should like to hear you define 
it," is the response. She reflected a moment, then 
said: 

"Love is the exclusive preference of one to all 
others." 

"And how long is this preference to last ? — for a 
month, or a day, or half an hour?" exclaimed the 
nervous gentleman, with sudden irritation. 

"For how long? Why, forever, of course," is 
the lady's ready reply. 

"But that happens in romances only. In real 
life never," contends the unsatisfied questioner; 
but in this the whole party manifest decidedly 
that they disagree with him, but he persists, and 
clinches his argument thus : "To love anybody for 
the whole of one's life, is to say that a candle will 
burn forever and ever without wasting." 

I must admit that I can see no logic in such 
argument as this of our pessimistic friend, who, 
by the way, is the principal character we have to 



[ Reviewed by a Woman. 5 

deal with from this on; and the chief difficulty 
lies in discussing the subject of love with one 
who does not seem to even recognize its first prin- 
ciples from a moral or spiritual point of view. 
For thus he continues: 

"You say that marriage is based on love, and 
when I express a doubt of the existence of any 
love not originating in sensuality, you attempt 
to prove the existence of love by marriage. But 
nowadays marriage is nothing more than violence 
and falsehood." 

"Pardon me/' exclaimed the lawyer. "I only 
asserted that marriage has existed, and exists 
still." 

Again: "But how and why does it exist? It 
exists only among people who look upon it as a 
sacrament or bargain, between man and God. It 
exists for them, but for us it is nothing but hypoc- 
risy and brute force. We feel that, and to make 
ourselves easy, we preach free love; but free love 
is nothing more than a return to promiscuousness, 
which is mere fishing in the dark." With a bow 
to the lady, and with many excuses for his plain 
speech he continues the conversation, and keep9 
his audience in astonished silence. 

"The ancient foundation is uprooted, we must 
build another. But we need not preach debauch- 
ery. 



The M Kreutzer Sonata" 



"However, the situation is terrible in the ex- 
treme. We must, by some means or other, regu- 
late our sexual relations, but there is bur one plan, 
and nobody believes in that any more. People 
marry after the old fashion, without the faith 
that sustained it. and what the results? Brute 
force and hypocrisy. When it is hypocrisy things 
go smoothly enough. Husband and wife deceive 
each other and the world by pretending to be 
monogamous, while in reality they are polygamous 
and polyandrou- 

I (the author) desire to refute this sweeping 
rtion, especially so far as it concerns woman; 
and I have not lost all faith in the purity of man. 
If, hov fidelity to marl is the 

ception rather than the rule with man, it is a si 
of affairs much to be n [ I will 

woman against an equal charge of mc lin- 

quency, although insisting tl: 
morality should be applied 

made laws favoring the one sex and ignoring jus- 
tice to the other, whether in Eussia or America, 
should be abrogated. Xature'c laws are the only 
true ones; and it is because they have so long 
been outraged that she is now c: 
avenged on the tra - and perverter- 

her righteous de: — or rather she is avenging 



Reviewed by a Woman. 7 

herself and executing her own judgment. But 
more of this anon. 

Having interrupted our friend in the middle 
of a sentence as it were, I return to take up 
the connection. 

"That is wrong, but it may pass. But when, as 
often happens, husband and wife have taken upon 
themselves the obligation to live together all their 
lives — I don't know why, nor do they, either, and 
they find, after the second month, that they would 
rather live separate, but, notwithstanding this 
natural desire, continue to cohabit, then comes that 
state of things when people fly to drink, or shoot 
themselves, or kill each other!" 

Presently the lawyer, willing to turn the con- 
versation, replied : 

"Ah, yes! these critical episodes do arrive in 
married life. For example, the Posdnicheff affair. 
The man who killed his wife for jealousy !" 

The nervous gentleman was silent, but changed 
color. After a pause, he said, suddenly: 

"I see you have guessed who I am." 

"No ! I have not that pleasure," was the reply. 

"The pleasure is not very great. I am Posd- 
nicheff !" 

Deep silence. He blushed, then grew pale again : 

"After all, what does it matter? Pray, pardon 



8 The " Kreutzer Sonata M 

me, I do not wish to be in the way/ 5 and he sat 
down in his corner. 

Our narrator continues: (chap. III.) : 

"I sat down beside him. The lawyer and lady 
whispered together. I kept silent. I wanted to 
talk, but I did not know exactly what to talk about 
and so passed an hour, till we reached the next 
-ration. There the lawyer, the lady and the com- 
mercial traveller got out. Posdnichefl and I were 
alone 

As in no other way could I give my readers 
a just description of the situation, or of the strange 
character with whom we have to deal, I shall 
make free to follow our narrator verbatim through 
his third chapter, continuing thus : 

" 'They say it, and they lie, or do not under- 
stand what they say/ said Posdnichefl. 

'"What are you talking about:' 

" 'The same old story.' 

"He sank on his knees and clasped his temples 
between his hands. 'Love, marriage, children, 
lies, lies, all V 

"He got up, pulled down the shade curtain of 
the lamp, lay down on the cushions, and closed 
his eyes. A minute passed. 

" 'Then you don't like my company now that 
you know who I am/ 

" 'I have no such thought/ 



Reviewed by a Woman, 



cc c 



T)o you want to go to sleep?' 
"<No, not at all.' ' 
" 'Then would you like me to tell you my 
story ?' 

'Must then the conductor passed through the 
car. Posdnicheff followed him with suspicious 
eyes, and did not speak until the man had gone. 

"Then lie began, and continued talking, never 
ceasing; not even the entrance of strange travellers 
stopped the stream of his reminiscences. 

"His countenance changed with his story; the 
face of one minute was not the face of the next. 
His eves, his mouth, his mustache, nay, his very 
beard took new forms — still it was always a hand- 
some and touching face, but in the advancing twi- 
light, a dissolving view of emotions." 

Here we enter on the fourth chapter, which 
opens thus : "Well ! I will tell you all my lament- 
able history. Yes! lamentable— (frightful, and 
yet the tale is not more dreadful than the result." 
All of which is fully verified in the recital, but 
which I shall touch on more briefly, only taking 
up such points as are really necessary to the pur- 
pose of this work of review. 

The son of a wealthy nobleman of the steppes — 
the leader of the nobility in his province, who 
studied at the university, took his degree and was 
called to the bar. After living to his thirtieth 



IO The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

year "as other men of his class lived — that is to 
say, a life of license; but in the midst of de- 
bauchery, he held himself to be a man of irre- 
proachable morality, an error not at all singular," 
he concluded to marry. 

Paradoxical rather, to say the least. 

He tells us also that judging from the example 
of his father and mother, who, he avers, did not 
deceive each other, he had built up from child- 
hood — notwithstanding his frequent lapses — "a 
dream of a noble and poetic conjugal existence." 

"My wife was to be absolute perfection' 9 - 

Not an uncommon demand of men of his cast, 
who seem to think that purity instead of de- 
manding its counterpart should accept its an- 
tipode. 

The fact is, they think a little purity is neces- 
sary in the family, even if it is all one sided. 
Bah! 

Thus he goes on: "Our mutual love was to be 
perfect beyond compare, the purity of our life 
unblemished. I dreamt of an ideal existence, and 
was proud of my dream. 

"But I was in no hurry to realize my Utopian 
ideas. I lived for ten vears of mv manhood what 
I considered to be a reasonable bachelor's life: 
I was no seducer of innocence; I had no low or 
unnatural vices; I did not make debauchery the 



Reviewed by a Woman. n 

end and aim of my existence, but enjoyed my 
life within the bounds of law and order, and inno- 
cently believed myself a model of good conduct — 
as that is understood in society/ 5 

(So much for the breadth of social license 
allowed man.) 

I may be excused if I follow him a little farther 
in his relation of what he at that time considered 
honorable dealings with women. 



U 



i 

I kept heart out of the bargain — and paid 



ready money. I avoided those women w 7 ho fell in 
love with me, because I feared they might bring 
offsprings and thus burden me in the future ; and 
if they had children, or were too affectionate, I 
took care not to seem aware of these little un- 
pleasantnesses. Living thus I considered myself 
a thoroughly honorable man." 

(How he could consider himself more honorable 
or respectable than the women he associated with, 
a person of unbiased judgment must fail to see; 
and he appears to see it when too late — when in 
after years he is reaping the bitter fruit of dread- 
ful experience. For his own credit and the truth's 
sake, we quote him here.) 

"Excuse me, but it is horrible, terrible, abomi- 
nable, this abyss of mistakes and crimes in which 
we continue to live in spite of what are called 
the 'rights of woman/ " 



12 The M Kreutzer Sonata " 

And here our narrator breaks silence : 

"May I ask what you consider the real rights 
of woman?" and is responded to thus: 

"The question is, What is this especial being, 
organized differently from man, and how this 
being, and man, should look at — woman?" 

The reviewer ventures to answer this question: 
Thy angel, in her rightful place, to lead thee 
heavenward. Dishonored and degraded, a mill- 
stone round thy neck to sink thee to the lowest 
hell. But, mark ye, in woman the scriptural truth 
shall yet be fulfilled. "The stone which the 
builders rejected is become the head of the cor- 
ner." And the day is not far distant that shall 
witness the dawning of woman's redemption. 

In chapter fifth he begins his explanation as 
to how he killed his wife, with these words : 

"I hilled her before I ever saw her! 9 

An explanation not as clear to the reader as to 
the one writing from his own experience, perhaps. 
Though he might really be said to have contem- 
plated her murder when he asked her to be his 
wife; just as clearly as the wolf contemplates 
devouring the lamb if he can get his clutch on 
her. For he sought to obtain a wife for the 
gratification of his sensual desire. That object 
was paramount or "the neat-fitting jersey, tne 
bustle, and the wavy hair/' on which he lays all 



Reviewed by a Woman. 13 

the blame of his "capture," would not have so 
intoxicated his senses and overpowered his reason 
that he could not take care of himself. 

Poor innocent offenders ! I fear we shall have 
to go back to "the good old days" for a precedent, 
and frame laws for the protection of men against 
the dangerous devices of feminine fashion; which 
our poor, much-imposed-upon Posdnicheff looks 
upon as decoys to ensnare merui&te~the meshes 
of matrimony. Not only shall everything su- 
perfluous in dress be suppressed, but the "neat- 
fitting jersey," which in adapting itself to the 
form, makes a good figure show to advantage — 
that, too, must be prohibited; and even if neces- 
sary "the wavy hair" shall be close shorn. We 
cannot afford to have our husbands, sons and 
brothers led astray by any temptation that they 
are too weak to resist. And the "designing moth- 
ers," who come in for so large a share of blame, 
they surely shall be annihilated. 

Though it is not strange that mothers should 
feel some interest in the fate of their daughters, 
and, especially, were it to the end of assisting them 
in making a wise selection, it should be regarded 
in the light of a sacred duty. But that this is not 
always the case is too true. In general "to marry 
well" means to marry wealth ; and the glamour of 



14 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 

outward appearance is often fully as beguiling 
to the mother as the daughter. 

Here is the story of how a strong man was 
"captured," as he terms it: 

"A moonlight excursion on the water decided 
my fate. The moonlight shining on the river, the 
beautiful girl sitting close to me, her exquisite 
figure set off by a close-fitting jersey that showed 
all its charming contours, and the perfumed ring- 
lets of her hair that were carried by the breeze 
across my face, overpowered me, and I jumped 
to the conclusion I had found my ideal. It 
seemed to me on that lovely evening that she 
reciprocated my thoughts and feelings, which were 
both in the highest state of romance. 

"In reality it was her jersey, that fitted her so 
neatly, and the wavy hair, and also the subtle 
intoxication that comes from propinquity. 

"I went home enthusiastic, persuaded that she 
realized the highest perfection of my dream, and 
the next day I asked her to be my wife." 

The realization of his dream in what respect? 
The purely physical — his dream of sensuality. 
That was all he was looking for in a wife; and 
therefore he was an adulterer in the fullest .sense 
of the text he takes for the subject of his argu- 
ment against love and marriage: "Whosoever 



Reviewed by a Woman, 15 

looketh on a woman to lust after her, hath com- 
mitted adultery with her already in his heart." 

I do not like to accept the belief he would 
force on us, that all men are "moral ulcers" and 
that the pure and beautiful youths who feel that 
marriage is not a joke but a serious matter "may 
be likened to a white crow — so rarely found;" 
and that "though mothers feign to believe in the 
purity of young men, in their innermost soul they 
know better." Neither will I leave the charge 
undenied, that women "know well enough that 
the noblest love depends not on moral qualities, 
but on physical intimacy." 

I do deny it in the name of pure womanhood 
generally; and, furthermore, I thank God that 
I do not live in Kussia, where the noblest love is 
so ignobly judged. 

For the benefit of our sorely imposed upon 
Posdnicheff and others of his uncontrollable sus- 
ceptibility to female influence on the sensual plane 
(a condition brought on by exclusive cultivation 
of the base brain and faculties under its control) 
I here introduce an extract from an ancient tale : 

"The seven wise men of Greece togther with 
M. Cato and Seneca and a secretary named Maz- 
zonius, are summoned to Delphi by Apollo at 
the desire of the Emperor Justinian, and then 
deliberate on the best mode of suppressing human 



1 6 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 

misery. " (A subject, to the credit of human 
nature be it said, that has in all ages been the 
greatest cause of anxiety to advanced minds.) I 
will not here give the deliberations in full ; suffice 
it to say, all manner of strange schemes are pro- 
posed. Cato^s turn comes and he wishes "that 
God in his mercy would be pleased to wash away 
all women from the earth by a new deluge, and 
at the same time to introduce some new arrange- 
ment for the continuation of the excellent male 
sex without female help." 

In which he seems to have anticipated the 
Miltonic Adam : 

"0 why did God, 
Creator wise, that peopled highest heaven 
With spirits masculine, create at last 
This novelty on earth, this fair defect 
Of nature, and not fill the world at once 
With men, as angels, without feminine, 
Or find some other way to generate mankind?" 

But we are informed that at this proposal of 
Cato's the whole company manifest the greatest 
displeasure, and deem it so abominable that they 
unanimously prostrate themselves on the ground 
and pray God "that he would graciously vouchsafe 
to preserve the lovely race of women, and to save 
the world from a second deluge." 



Reviewed by a Woman. 17 

At length, after a long debate, the counsel of 
Seneca prevails: That out of all ranks a society 
should be composed having for its object the gen- 
eral welfare of mankind and pursuing it in secret. 

This counsel is adopted; though without much 
hope on the part of the deputation on account 
of the desperate condition of "The Age,", who 
appears before them in person and describes his 
own wretched state of health. I wonder how 
it would compare with the present ! 

I cannot forbear mentioning one other propo- 
sition of this wise council: Thales advises to cut 
a hole in every man's breast and place a little 
window in it, by which means it would become 
possible to look into the heart, to detect hypocrisy 
and vice, and thus to extinguish it. 

This last, I should think, would meet the favor 
of all women. Had Posdnicheff been thus treated 
it might have been his salvation; as some one of 
his lady associates with whom he had such "honor- 
able" dealings, might have been candid enough 
to have enlightened him as to the true inwardness 
of things in that dark chamber which he had 
managed to deceive himself into believing was 
kept always "swept and garnished." 

Alas ! for these whited sepulchres. 

But to proceed with my review. I p^j\i\at find 
words to express my disgust at such expression 



1 8 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

as this: "For the most part all our idyllic ideas 
of marriage are the consequence of full feeding." 
As also: "A lazy, luxuriant life will soon bring 
love up to the boiling point." 

Love! What desecration. 

And, after all, his complaint of being taken 
captive by the "woman power" in shape of mother, 
daughter and dressmaker; on the opposite page 
he represents the modern matrimonial plan thus: 
"It is simply to set out the marriageable girls 
in rows like tulips and to pick and choose. The 
girls wait and think, but dare not say, 'Take me, 
young man/ We men walk up and down and select 
the goods according to our fancy; and yet we 
talk about the rights of woman, of the freedom 
of man, and other such topics to please the gallery. 
Woman is a mere slave, exposed in the open 
market." 

Who is it then that should complain, man or 
woman? And is it any wonder, under these cir- 
cumstances, that mothers should feci interested 
in the disposal of their precious wares ; and desir- 
ous, if their daughters must be sold into slavery, 
to aid them in choosing as good a master as 
possible ? 

Again: "The real wrong of woman is not that 
she is deprived of the ballot, nor excluded from 
the bench, but that she is deprived of the right 



Reviewed by a Woman. 19 

to her own body! the right of choosing instead 
of being chosen." 

But just as we, his feminine readers, are begin- 
ning to feel grateful to him for his generous 
advocacy of woman's natural right, we turn the 
leaf, and here he is raving again over woman's 
enslaving influence over man through personal 
adornment: "For a long time past I have felt 
uneasv when I saw a woman too well dressed, 
whether it be a woman of the people with her 
red shawl and her skirt tucked up through her 
pocket holes, or a woman of society dressed for a 
ball." 

(No doubt an Indian squaw with a red blanket 
around her dusky form would have the same 
effect. ) 

"The sight fairly terrifies me. I see the danger 
to men; I see something contrary to law, and I 
am tempted to call the police. I am not joking: 
the time will come, and perhaps soon, when the 
world will wonder how any society can exist 
wherein such vile actions are permitted as those 
which appeal to our sensuality by such excess of 
personal adornment. It is worse than digging 
pitfalls in the public streets for the unwary to 
fall into." 

At this point I begin to look on it as a confused 
jumble of ideas blown off by explosion of the 



20 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

brain of some pitiful licentious crank; and wonder 
how Tolstoi could ever bring himself to put such 
stuff in print. But, on second thought, I compare 
this experience of Posdnicheff with King Solomon's 
"search for wisdom/' and conclude, as it agrees 
exactly, both in experience and conclusions, that 
perhaps all men of that type are wisdom seekers. 

"And I gave my heart to know wisdom, and to 
know madness and folly — I sought in mine heart 
to give myself unto wine (yet acquainting mine 
heart with wisdom) ; and to lay hold on folly till 
I might see what was good for the sons of men, 
which they should do under the heaven all the 
davs of their life. 

"I applied mine heart to know, and to search 
and to seek out wisdom and the reason of things, 
and to know the wickedness of folly, even of 
foolishness and madness: And I find more bitter 
than death the woman whose heart is snares and 
nets, and her hands as bands ; whoso pleaseth God 
shall escape from her ; but the sinner shall be taken 
by her/' 

Posdnicheff's wail exactly. It seems shocking, 
yet one cannot but be amused at the persistence 
of Solomon in his search for wisdom and righteous 
women ; especially as he seemed so bent on search- 
ing for righteousness in the place where he least 
expected to find it; and then complains that he 



Reviewed by a Woman. 21 

has not found one righteous woman in a thousand ! 
Not even, I suppose, among the thousand wives 
and mistresses scripture record gives, was there 
a righteous one; and the one righteous man in 
a thousand we will presume was himself; as, no 
doubt, like Posdnicheif, he considered himself 
honorable in his dealings with women. And, 
especially, he being king, of course they were 
honored by receiving his attention. I don't even 
think of apologizing for thus making free to 
criticise a prominent scriptural character. And 
though "sacred writ" informs us that "King Solo- 
mon loved many strange women," I take the same 
exception to the term love being thus desecrated 
in Solomon's case as in that of Posdnicheff. That 
passion which gives man "no pre-eminence above 
a beast," or, indeed, through the perversion of 
which he has degraded himself below the brute 
creation, should be called by its right name. And, 
to tell the plain truth, woman owes her position 
of inferiority largely to the teaching and example 
of those Old Testament characters. But for the 
fact that evolution has naturally advanced man 
and broadened his ideas we should have been 
crushed out of existence in penalty of "Mother 
Eve's" sin. I, for one, am getting tired of that 
old cry, "The woman tempted me !" 

Let man once set woman free, and give her an 



22 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

equal chance in the race of life, and she will prove 
+-he truth of Miltonic Eve : 

"Though all ly me is lost, such favor 
I unworthy am vouchsafed, 
By me the Promised Seed shall all restore/ 9 

That "Promised Seed" not alone the man-Christ, 
Jesus; but the Christ of the second coming, in 
the form of Redeemed, Purified and Elevated 
Womanhood. 

Woman must rule in the domain of sex. This 
is her grand prerogative, the God-given law of her 
nature. Even brute instinct teaches this. And 
in the days of her freedom, while she is mistress 
of her own person, nature's laws are respected and 
man bows at her honored shrine and walks obedi- 
ent to her will, never daring to presume to en- 
croach on her most sacred right. But as soon as 
she is induced to bow her head beneath the yoke, 
God's laws are set aside and man's law substituted. 

Under the name of "holy marriage" the defini- 
tion of virtue is changed, and the holy function of 
sex is desecrated to abnormal uses ; and woman in- 
stead of being considered a medium of Creative 
Power is made a slave to man's unbridled passion, 
thus unfitting her for the grandest purpose of 
maternity. 



Reviewed by a Woman. 23 

Woman in her rightful place, in the Langua 
of a noble writer, "is man's reasonable companion, 
not the slave of his passion ; the end of her being 

is not merely to gratify his loose desires, but to 
st him in the toils of life, to soothe him with 
her tenderness and recompense him with her soft 
endearments." I add: and to make it her aim. 
in all things, to cultivate his higher nature and 
draw him heavenward. This, however, she can 
only do by cultivating herself in the same direc- 
tion. I think I cannot do better than to again 
introduce an extract from Milton's Paradise Lost. 
The angel to Adam in reply to his admiration of 
Eve : 

"What admirest thou, what transports thee so? 

An outside fair, no doubt, and worthy well 

Thy cherishing, thy admiration and thy love; 

Not thy subjection. Weigh with her thyself, then 

value. 
****** 

But if the sense of touch whereby mankind 
Is propagated, seem such dear delight 
Beyond all other; think the same vouchsafed 
To cattle and each beast, which would not be 

de common and divulged, if aught 
Therein enjoyed were worthy to subdue 
soul of man, or passion in him move. 



24 The "Kreutzer Sonata" 

What higher in her society thou find'st 
Attractive, human ,,.0%Lional , love still. 
In 'loving thou dost ivell, in passion not, 
Wherein true love consists not. Love refines 
The thoughts and heart enlarges, hath his seat 
In reason and is judicious, is the scale 
By which to heavenly love thou mayst ascend. 
Not sunk in carnal pleasures; for which cause 
Amonn the leasts §o mate for thee ivas found. 

Adam. 

To love thou bi&mest me not; for love thou sayest 
Leads up to heaven, is both way and guide; 
Bear with me then if lawful what I ash 
Love not the heavenly spirits, and how their love 
Express they? by looks only? or do they mix 
Irradiance, virtual or immediate touch? 

The Angel. 

Let it suffice thee that thou know'st us happy 
And without love no happiness. 
Whatever pure thou in the body enjoy' st 
(And pure thou wert created) we enjoy 
In eminence, and obstacle find none. 
Easier than air with air if spirits embrace. 
Total they mix, union of pure with pure 
Desiring. * * * * But I can no more: 
****** 



Reviewed by a Woman. 25 

Hesperian sets my signal to depart. 

Be strong, live happy, and lure! but first of all 

Him, who to lore is to obey, and keep 
His great command; take heed lest passion sway 
Thy judgment to do aught, which else free will 
Would not admit; thine, and of all thy sons 
The weal or ivoe in thee is placed. Beware!" 

I think the above tells all that can be needed in 
the direction of true sex union; and had it been 
heeded ever since it was spoken, the world would 
have been different to-day, and the pitiful wail of 
Posdnicheff would not have come up from a lust- 
murdered soul. 

Here I resume my review, which. I shall take 
up at the opening of the tenth chapter. 

"That was the way I was caught. I was what 
people call in love. Not only did she appear to me 
an angel, but I looked upon myself as a 'rare and 
perfect chrysolite/ " 

As it would be doing a relentant spirit injustice 
to stop here, I go on farther with the quotation: 
"It is a sad fact that there is no wretch so low but 
that he can find one more degraded than himself, 
and pride himself on his superiority ; that was my 
case ; I had not married for money, or for power- 
ful connections, as I have known many to do. I 
was rich, she was poor. I had not married to 



26 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 

continue the polygamous life of a bachelor. I hon- 
estly intended to be faithful to my wife, and I 
plumed myself on my virtue. I was simply a cad 
who thought himself a Bayard." 

He tells of their engagement and its final con- 
summation. 

"We found it extremely difficult to keep up a 
conversation. A conjugal chat was a labor of 
Sisyphus. We had literally nothing to talk 
about." 

It is very evident— the reason ?i this: — his 
faculties, even his very tongue, were lust-bound; 
and she, poor girl, was hypnotized into dumbness 
by the base magnetic influence he held over her in 
a carnal direction. Had there been love worthy 
the name it would have acted as an inspiration be- 
tween them; but even though on her side the 
thought of sensuality was not prominent she was 
powerless to turn the current of his impure 
thoughts in another direction than their natural 
filthy channel. Who would not sympathize with 
this poor lamb thus unmercifully led to the 
slaughter ? 

Of the marriage ceremony and bridal adorn- 
ments, he speaks thus : "Is it not like an auction- 
in which a virgin sold to a rake is crowned with 
flowers ?" 

We must admit that funereal weeds would be 



Reviewed by a Woman. 27 

more appropriate on such an occasion as that; and 
who can dispute that in many respects our so-called 
holy marriage system is a hollow mockery? Still. 
I am not prepared to say that virtue does not ex- 
ist, or that the relation between the sexes cannot 
be purified and made holy. All men are not rakes, 
nor all women wanton, as this depraved pessimist 
would fain induce^ or compel us to believe. 

Neither has nature made a mistake ; but through 
ignorance or wilfulness man has refused to obey 
her laws and brought misery on himself and untold 
suffering on woman ; to say nothing of the fearful 
consequence to posterity. 

A brief review of the eleventh chapter describes 
the honeymoon, with more than intimation of hor- 
rors at which a brute might well blush, but which, 
though containing much truth, we have no use 
for here; but it plainly shows on which side the 
brutality exists, the poor young wife being the 
bound victim. The "marriage altar" is a very ap- 
propriate name. He admits all this, and as an 
offset proposes the other extreme — to leap at a 
single bound to the Buddhist's Nirvana, the high- 
est state of purity; but which he wrongfully de- 
scribes as non-existence — annihilation; while the 
true definition is, that the soul, developed beyond 
the need of further incarnation in limited form, 
Karma, the mortal clinging, is outgrown, and 



28 The 4 ' Kreutzer Sonata" 

hence "will no more make new houses," but the 
soul; freed from earth becomes so expanded that 
"the universe grows T." He must be made aware, 
however, that the Buddhist's Nirvana is reached 
by slow degrees through a series of incarnations. 
In the words of Holland : 

"Heaven is not reached at a single bound, 
We build the ladder on which toe rise/' 

Aye • and must climb it round by round. 

To make clear the point under review, to those 
who have not read "Kreutzer Sonata," I quote in 
brietf the conversation between the narrator and his 
misanthropic travelling companion, preceding this 
reference to Nirvana: 

Our narrator objects to such a vicious construc- 
tion being put on the exercise of what he terms a 
natural function whereby the race is perpetuated, 
and says in astonishment: 

"But the world must be peopled." 

"I do not see the necessity," is the reply. 

"But the human race could not exist." 

"Then let it perish." 

A student of Theosophy can at once perceive the 
drift of his argument, but it is hardly coherent 
enough for general comprehension. 

The great mistake is, his considering Nirvana 






Reviewed by a Woman. 29 

as a resolving into the "infinite void" and becoming 
lost — annihilated. 

We quote from "Light of Asia": 

"If any teach Nirvana is to cease, 
Say unto such they lie. 
If any teach Nirvana is to live, 
Say unto such they err; not knowing this, 
Nor what light shines beyond their broken lamps, 
Nor lifeless, timeless bliss/' 

Thus, it is rather a condition of indescribable 
existence that no mortal language can express, — in- 
comparable and inexpressible bliss. One with that 
glory spoken of in scripture, which "eye hath not 
seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into 
the heart of man to conceive." It is attained only 
by those who dying leave 

"A life count closed, whose ills are dead and quit, 

Whose good is quick and mighty far and near 

So that fruits follow it. 

No need hath such to live as ye name life, 

That which began in him when he began 

Is finished; he hath wrojught the purpose through 

Of what did make him- man. 

Never shall yearnings torture him, nor si/ns 

Stain him, nor ache of earthly joys or woes 

Invade his safe eternal peace: Nor deaths 

And lives recur." 



30 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

Jesus' dying words, "It is finished/' implies 
the same. 

I did not set out to write a dissertation on 
Buddhism; still, I feel inclined to make this 
"bomb" effective and carry out the assassin's aim in 
the throwing. I do this the more readily because 
I believe it was prompted by a good motive and 
aimed at social corruption,, the glaring vice of the 
age. 

Posdnicheff seems not to have attained the point 
of spiritual perception in any sense. 

As thus : "The chief end of man and humanity 
at large is happiness; and to obtain that, there is 
one law that must be obeyed. This law is the 
union of beings. This union is obstructed by the 
passions, and the strongest and the vilest of pas- 
sions is sexual love. Because if the passions 
disappear, and corporeal love with them, this union 
will be accomplished. Then humanity will have 
fulfilled its destiny, and have no longer reason to 
exist." 

Our narrator here inquires : "What is to become 
of humanity while it is obeying the law ?*' 

"There is always a safety valve, the token that 
the law is not accomplished, and that sexual love 
still exists. Through this love generations will 
be born, of which one will fulfill the law. Then 
the human race will cease, for it is impossible 



Reviewed by a Woman. 31 

to imagine life and perfect union as co-existent." 
A rather poor argument to induce to a higher 
development. Xow, where our Posdnicheff has 
"union of beings/' his critic would carry it higher, 
and say, union of being — divine harmony; hu- 
manity becoming more and more spiritualized, 
until carnal conditions shall be outgrown and the 
very atmosphere of earth spiritualized. Then all 
"sins being slain we come Nirvana's verge unto/' 
which entering we become merged into the union 
of being and begin to realize life in its fulness. 

But fearful that the Karma still existent will 
require "new houses" for some generations to come, 
I see no better way at this stage than to urge the 
necessity of building better for the future. Let 
me say then to you, my sisters: for it is to you 
I especially address this work — a woman to 
women : 

Build well the temple, ye mothers of men, 
For know ye are building for glory or shame; 
Know ye are building for weakness or might, 
Know ye are building for darkness or light. 
God has ordained you his workers to be, 
Weighed in his balance your product must be. 
Judged by his justice the work ye have wrought, 
Paid by his measure the meed ye have sought. 



X2 The " Kreutzer Sonata 



Build ye, 0, build to the honor of God 
Temples for his Holy Spirit's abode; 
Lay your foundation in wisdom and love 
And beautiful angels will smile from above. 
Building for Heaven, ye build well for Earth. 
Mankind's great need is a holier birth; 
Nations are groaning through evils inwrought, 
And with dire vengeance even heaven seems 

fraught. 
Oh! we have builded in weakness and shame. 
Pity us, heaven! we were not to blame 
Groping in darkness we knew not the way; 
Light is now breaking; we welcome the day. 
Dawn of an era by prophets foretold; 
Sung of by bards, voiced by sages of eld; 
Of which angelic hosts sang on Bethlehem's plain. 
An era of "Peace and good will to all men." 
Woman, through thee this grand era must come, 
Or prophets, bards, sages, as well might be dumb; 
Can figs grow from thistles? or grapes from the 

thorn ? 
Or from grovelling passio?is can angels be born? 
Can the kingdom of heaven descend from above 
Till attracted to earth by the spirit of love ? 
Can striving and envy and warring e'er cease 
Till wisdom beget the sweet spirit of peace? 
0, haste thee to cast out these demons of sin, 
And say, in love's power— "I will, be thou clean," 



Reviewed by a Woman. 33 

Call heaven to aid thee and guide thee aright, 
And go forth, in thy womanhood armed, to the 

fight. 
Aye; to fight 'gainst base passion! and conquer 

through love, 
And man lifted higher thy labor shall prove. 
And nations shall bless thee for what thou hast 

done, 
And glory shall crown thee, more bright than the 

sun. 
For patriot souls will then rise in their might 
And build the grand Temple of Justice and Right, 
Which could not be built until woman should come 
To aid in the work from foundation to dom\e. 

Woman must be allowed to fulfil her mission 
and lead in this work of the world's redemption; 
and it is man's duty to sustain and strengthen 
her, and aid her in every possible manner. 

The creative faculty — the most God-like power 
bestowed on mortal beings, must be lifted from 
the mire and cleansed and purified until the pure 
white marble statue is a true representative, and 
no blush need mantle the cheek at the thought of 
sex. "To the pure all things are pure/' 

I would that the text of "Kreutzer Sonata'' 
might stand out in letters of fire before man's 
vision continually, and ring in his ears with 



34 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

thunder peal until its warning should be both 
heard and heeded. 

As heretofore there has been but little to quote 
in the way of moral instruction, from our friend 
Posdnicheff, I give an extract from chapter twelve 
to his credit. 

"In order that people may remain moral even 
in their sexual relations, they must set up as an 
example complete chastity. But in striving toward 
that aim, man must crucify the flesh. Once he 
arrives at the degree of self-mortification we may 
have the truly moral marriage. 

"But if man, as in the present state of society,, 
looks for mere physical love, he clothes his desires 
with pretexts under the form of marriage, and it 
becomes nothing more than legalized debauchery, t 
He will never know anything but the life of im- 
morality, to which I gave way myself and forced 
on my wife, that which we call domestic happiness. 
Eeflect how perverted one's ideas must be when the 
greatest happiness of man, liberty and chastity, 
is looked upon as a thing at once pitiable and 
ridiculous; when the highest ideal of woman, 
purity and virginity, provokes jeer and laughter. 

"How often do young girls sacrifice their purity 
to this Moloch of public opinion and marry men 
utterly beneath them rather than remain maids — 
that is to say, superior beings. Rather than con- 



Reviewed by a Woman. 35 

tinue in that state of ideal perfection they throw 
themselves away." 

There is much food for reflection in the above. 

He then resumes the sickening details of the 
honeymoon, which resulted in his wife becoming 
melancholy, and when he sought to know the 
reason and took her in his arms to comfort her, 
she dreys away from him and wept. He would 
know what caused her tears. I give his own 
language : 

"She could not tell me. She was nervous; out 
of sorts. Probably this very nervousness suggested 
to her the ignominy of our relations to each other. 
But she could not find words to express her 
feelings. I began to question her. She said she 
was fretting for her mother. Her words did not 
ring true. I tried to console her without talking 
of her parents. It did not strike me that she was 
simply overcome, and that the fretting after her 
mother was only an evasion. She paid no at- 
tention to me, and I accused her of caprice. I 
began gently to chide her. She ceased crying 
and reproached me bitterly for my selfishness 
and cruelty. I stared at her. Her features ex- 
pressed hatred — hatred against me! I cannot 
express the horror I felt at this sight. 

"What, thought I, love is the union of two 
souls, and my wife hates me ! Me ? Oh ! It is 



36 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

impossible. She is not herself! I tried to calm 
her. I found I was fighting an indestructible and 
cold hostility, and without taking time to reflect 
I showed my anger. 

"We said unkind things to each other. The 
impression of this first quarrel was terrible. I 
call it a quarrel, but that is not the proper word: 
It was the opening of an abyss between us. Our 
love had spent itself in excessive sensuality." 

Eeconciliation finally comes, but only lasts a 
short time until there is another quarrel, followed 
by a short truce. So it continues until they seem 
to be periodical. Is it strange though — when he 
tells us that he never thought of the intellectual 
life of the woman he had taken to be his life com- 
panion ? Here another detail of the situation must 
be given in his own words: 

"And not only did I forget her intellectual life, 
but even her physical. I wondered at the origin of 
our enmity, and yet after all how clear it is ! This 
enmity was nothing more than a protest of human 
nature against the brute who assaulted it. It 
could not be otherwise. Our hate was like that 
of accomplices in crime: for was it not a crime 
that when this poor woman had begun her pil- 
grimage of maternity her footsteps should be 
clogged by the weight of man's brutality ? 

"You fancy I am straying from my subject. 



Reviewed by a Woman. 37 

Not at all. I simply relate the events which led 
to the murder of my wife. The fook-! They 
believe I killed my wife on the fifth of October. 
But I had slain her long before, as they are slaying 
theirs at this moment. * * * * 

"The most wonderful thing of all is that nobody 
seems to understand it, a thing so plain, so evident 
that even a doctor might see it, yet nobody wants 
to understand it: man lives for pleasure and 
despises the first law of nature — children. * * 

"Woman with us is expected to be at the same 
time mother, mistress and nurse, but her strength 
is not equal to. this triple function/' 

He might have added the 'fourfold burden of 
household drudge in the majority of homes; and 
even in stringent circumstances, having often to 
deny herself the nourishment necessary to her 
condition. If in high life, where luxury and every 
earthly comfort abounds, these wrongs inflicted 
on woman are so outrageous, what of the working 
class? Aye, and the miserable poor? — women, all 
the same ! 

But we are interested in letting our friend 
Posdnicheff continue his say. He is talking to 
the purpose now: 

"If people only considered what a wonderful 
work is gestation ! In the mother is formed the 
being which is to continue our line, and this holy 



38 The " Kreutzer Sonata M 

work is obstructed — by what ? It is horrible even 
to think it, and yet people talk of liberty, of the 
rights of woman. It is like cannibals fattening 
their prisoners to eat them, and promising them 
that their rights and liberty shall be respected. 

"It is said that animals know that their different 
species are perpetuated by descent, and that in 
this respect they follow a well defined law. It is 
only man who does not, and will not know this 
fact. He careL for nothing but his pleasure, the 
King of Nature — Man ! Note well, that the beasts 
of the field couple only when they can reproduce 
their species; but the ignoble King of Xature — 
whenever he is so disposed; and not content with 
this, he dignifies this proclivity with the name of 
love/ 

"He kills one-half of the human race. The 
woman, who ought to be his helper in the great 
movement of humanity toward liberty, he makes, 
not a friend, but an enemv." 

I feel truly grateful for this plain expression of 
truths worthy the deepest consideration of all 
thoughtful readers, whether men or women. 

Chapter fourteen is principally devoted to 
criticism of woman's superficial education and also 
the pernicious effect of impressing young girls 
with the idea that to marrv is the sole end and 



Reviewed by a Woman. 39 

aim of their existence. In which I agree with 
him, but protest against the exaggerated sensual 
coloring. But he is so morbidly sensitive in that 
direction that every action of woman is viewed 
in that light. 

We next find him writhing under the pangs 
of jealousy — without cause, apparently; for, as 
yet, he gives us no reason to think there was even 
the shadow of a doubt of his wife's fidelity to 
him. 

Besides he represents her as a devoted mother, 
desirous of nursing her infant, and even persisting 
in giving it part nourishment in defiance of the 
physician's objection — that it was an injury to 
her health. He is jealous of the doctor as an 
advisor, jealous also of her love for her children, 
as, to use his own words, "one after another they 
made their appearance without loss of time/' He 
even finds fault with the anxiety mothers feel 
for the welfare of their children. 

"Women," he says, "love their offspring, and love 
is the parent of fear for the health and life of 
their children. Love, the soul's best thing, comes 
to them in the guise of danger. 

"Woman can see nothing but beauty in her 
child. She brings him into the world in pain and 
travail ; but what pretty little fingers, what dainty 



40 The ' Kreutzer Sonata " 

little feet, what a sweet smile ! its dear little body, 
its cunning little coo, and oh ! how it crows !" 

Yes, and the mother feels a heavenly delight 
in these charms, which to her are not merely 
outward. Her soul caresses her darling in loving 
joy that none but a mother can know. She feels 
that enclosed in that lovely form is a precious 
treasure committed to her keeping. Ah ! if she 
could only be instructed and allowed to do her 
best work. 

But what must we think of such babbling as 
this : "Among poultry or cattle the chicken droops 
its head, the calf dies, and the hen clucks awhile ; 
the cow moos, and they live on their vacant, for- 
getful existence. With us if a baby fall sick, then 
is the doctor to be called in, the nurse to be 
engaged, and the whole house to be disturbed. 
If it dies there are no more little rosy fingers, 
no more pretty little feet, and then to what end 
all this suffering endured at its birth?" 

The foregoing is but the continuation of a 
r idiculous satire on woman's over-anxiety for the 
health and life of hex children, in which this also 
occurs : 

"One is tempted to think they would have pre- 
ferred children like India-rubber dolls, who would 
never fall sick, who would never die^ and could 



Reviewed by a Woman. 41 

always bo mended. How their poor brains 
muddled !" Thus he concludes this harangue: 

"The mere animal has no imagination, and 
cannot torture itself by thinking how it might 
have saved its offspring if it had only done this, 
that or the other. And its grief, which is merely 
physical, lasts but a little while; it is only a 
passing regret, and not that deep-seated feeling 
born of idleness and satiety that rises to the pitch 
of despair/ 5 

(At about this juncture a woman w r ishes for the 
power to inflict on this satirical demon every pang 
that woman ever suffered — physically or mentally.) 
To the question of our narrator: "But, then, 
what must one do, according to your view of the 
case, to rear children after the human fashion?" 
we have this reply : 

"Simply to love them after man's fashion/' Bv 
this he means, I suppose, and judges all men by 
himself; that such treasures he would gladly lay 
up in heaven. 

Allow me to quote him a little farther on this 
subject of woman's weakness: 

"We read of acts of heroism achieved by women 
who have sacrificed their children through exalted 
motives of faith or superstition. But these seem 
to us- as stories from an antique world, in which 
we have no part. Nevertheless, I believe that if 



42 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 

a woman have not an ideal to which she can 
sacrifice the mere animal sentiment, she will waste 
herself in chimerical efforts to preserve the mere 
bodily health of her children, aided in this task 
by her medical attendant, and she will suffer the 
inevitable consequence of her folly. 

"Thus it was with my wife. Whether there be 
one child or five the feeling is the same. Perhaps 
five are better than one. Life is embittered by 
fear of one's children. Not only on account of 
their real or imagine ry illnesses, but by their very 
presence. I know that during all my married life 
my comfort and happiness depended on the health, 
the well being and the education of my children. 
Parents have no rights that children are bound 
to respect," 

(In this they are but retaliating ante-natal 
injustice. As, certain it is, that under the existing 
state of things, an unborn child's most sacred 
rights are most condemnedly outraged, and that 
continually.) 

"A regular, orderly life has no charms for the 
young, and so domestic life hangs by a hair. 
Fancy being told suddenly, without adequate prep- 
aration, that little Basil has got a pain in his 
stomach, or that Lisette has an attack of croup. 
Instantly everything is abandoned ; everything 
forgotten. Nothing is thought of but the doctor, 



Reviewed by a Woman. 43 

warm baths and an even temperature. You cannot 
converse with a friend without being interrupted 
by little Peter anxiously asking if he may venture 
to eat some green fruit, or, if it is absolutely 
necessary for him to change his shirt. Or, else 
it is the nurse maid rushing in with a baby scream- 
ing violently for want of its regular meals. 

"The order of the family life is completely 
upset. What matters it how you live, move, or 
have your being ? Nothing matters but the health 
of the little ones, and, thanks to the doctors, who 
strive to restore that health, mostly with no effect, 
your life is made a burden to you. Scarcely has 
one danger passed than another appears, and all 
the fuss begins anew. You feel like a man on 
a ship foundering in midocean. Sometimes I have 
suspected that the whole thing was invented by 
my wife to intimidate me, because she never failed 
to turn the situation to her own uses. I have 
fancied that everything she said and did at these 
times was meant for my subjugation, but now 
I know that her only thoughts were for her 
children. The situation was painful for us both, 
but for her, her babies gave her the means of 
forgetting everything else in a sort of mental 
intoxication. 

"In the old times women consoled themselves 



44 The 4< Kreutzer Sonata " 

with the belief, 'The Lord hath given, the Lord 
hath taken away. Blessed be the name of the 
Lord/ They consoled themselves with the thought 
that the soul of the departed had returned to Him 
who gave it. That it was better to die in innocence 
than to live in sin. If women had such a com- 
fortable faith to support them they might take 
their misfortunes less to heart ; but, alas ! faith 
has gone out of fashion with powdered hair and 
patches. But, still, as human nature must believe 
in something they believe in physic, and not only 
in physic but in physicians. ***•.♦ And 
all beacuse woman is like a wild rose, charming 
to look at, but untrained. She has lost her belief 
in God, and put her faith in the doctor who 
charges the highest fee. Else she would know 
that disease is not so very terrible, because it 
cannot affect what alone is worth loving— the soul. 
The worst that can happen is what we all must 
submit to — dissolution of this bodv. Without 
faith in God, woman's love grovels in the mire; 
all thedr energies are concentrated to prolong an 
existence that must end sooner or later, but which 
fools believe the doctors can prolong indefinitely. 
"So it came about that children, instead of 
softening the relations between us, drove us farther 
apart. The older they grew the more they caused 
continual disputes. Each of us had a favorite; 



Reviewed by a Woman. 45 

mine was the eldest boy, Basil; hers the youngest 
daughter, Lisette. When these children were of an 
age when character begins to show itself, we 
dragged them into our quarrels. The poor children 
were none the better for this, but in our continual 
bickering we never thought about them. The 
little girl was devoted to me, but the boy, who 
bore a striking likeness to his mother both in 
mind and person, often added to my irritation 
against her/' 

There is much meaning underlving all this 
character painting, and these episodes of domestic 
life in inharmonious marriage relations. There 
is so much of truth in them that I feel the public 
should have the full benefit of the author's purpose 
in setting them forth. That the book was written 
for a high moral purpose I have not a doubt, and 
I hope to extend its effort for good. 

"Leaning on her children, my wife was supreme. 
I did know then she could not be otherwise, because 
when we were wedded she was morally my superior, 
as every young girl must be superior to man 
because she is purer than he. * * * * * 

"The wife who brings children into the world, 
nourishing them at her bosom, perceives clearly 
enough that her part in life is more important 
and far more serious than that of the man who 



46 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

sits in the councils of the emperor, or on the 
bench. 

•J* *J» *.t» «!• •£* *i» •&• *£* *&» »£* *S* 

"But the husband is not of my opinion on this 
point; not only does he refuse to recognize the 
wife's superiority, but he looks down on her from 
his superior bodily altitude with lordly contempt. 

"My wife despised my political labors, because 
she bore and nursed children, and I, on my part, 
looked upon woman's work as a pitiful thing only 
fit to be laughed at." 

This is by no means a usual thing on woman's 
part, for, although it is common for man to look 
on woman's work with contempt, one might say, 
because it is "non productive," woman always 
considers man's labor of great importance, and 
wishes that like him she could make her labor 
pay — earn something. She chafes under the 
feeling that she must ask her husband for every 
dollar she needs, and feel in every way that she 
is dependent on him for support. 

Even our wealthy and aristocratic Fosdnicheff 
in speaking of the second quarrel between himself 
and wife, says: "It was some miserable question 
of money, and I never haggled on that score; 
meanness was not part of my nature. I remember 
only that in answer to some remark of mine she 
insinuated that I wanted to domineer over her 



Reviewed by a Woman. 47 

by the power of my money, and it was on thai 
score I based my only right over her. In fact, 
something so extremely stupid and base, that 
it entered neither into her character nor mine." 

I do not agee with him. It was in his character 
to rule over woman by the power of his money; 
and in proof quote from his own account of his 
dealings with women, during his bachelorhood : 

"I counted myself an honorable man because 
I kept heart out of the bargain — and paid ready 
money." 

Besides, in his malicious bitterness at the 
frequent calls for the doctor, he often makes 
mention of the fee in some such sarcastic manner 
as this, "he pocketed his fee and left." 

Hence, no doubt, the poor wife was often made 
to feel she had incurred an unnecessary expense. 
And what would be more cutting to a wife and 
mother, than to think that the husband and father 
should make the life and health of his family a 
secondary consideration ? 

There is something, too, most strikingly strange 
in this matter of women, even in the census, 
being classed as non-producers. Women non- 
producers ! Like printing as "the art preservative 
of all arts," woman is the producer of all the 
"world's producers ! Deny it who can. 

0, woman, what insults thou hast had to endure ! 



48 The " Kreutzer Sonata" 

When will the day of thy deliverance come ? Who 
shall free 11s from the power of this curse — man- 
made laws for our ruling? But to resume: 
"Towards the fourth year of our marriage we 
were tacitly agreed on one point only — that we 
could never agree on the most simple subjects. 
We held to our opinions with obstinacy. Among 
strangers we would talk on all sorts of subjects, 
but in private we were dumb. Our conversation, 
when alone, never extended beyond that rudi- 
mentary language that I am convinced all animals 
of the same species are capable of using to each 
other, 'What o'clock is it?' 'It is time to go to 
bed/ 'What's for dinner to-day?' 'Anything in 
the paper ? 'We must send for the doctor, Lisette 
has a sore throat/ That was the style of our 
intercourse. The moment we ventured to trans- 
gress this narrow limit in conversation a new 
outbreak followed. The presence of a third person 
smoothed matters a little, and served as a sort 
of go-between. I have no doubt but that my wife 
thought herself a very ill-used woman. As for 
me, I looked upon myself as a saint compared 
with her. 

"The attacks of what we call by the name of 
love recurred regularly as before; * * * * 
but they never lasted long and generally gave 
way to periods of causeless irritation arising from 



Reviewed by a Woman. 49 

the merest trifles. * * * * My life was a 
continual boiling up of indignation. I fidgeted 
about the way she poured out tea. I growled if 
she trotted her foot. I found fault with the way 
she ate her soup, or, if she blew her coffee to cool 
it, and I counted her slightest actions as crimes. 
It did not occur to me that these periods of 
irritation followed very closely our fits of love. 

"We did not see that our love and hate were 
but two phases of the same passion." 

As these points all speak for themselves and 
need no comments, allow me to continue the extract 
a little farther. "My wife sought oblivion in 
eager absorbing occupations, in the care of her 
household, in the dress of herself and her children, 
in their education and health. She devoted herself 
to all these, as if her very life and that of her 
children depended on nothing else. I saw plainly 
that in all this she sought forgetfulness, as I did 
in hunting, gambling and politics." (We can 
now clearly understand why his wife despised his 
"political labors." He was of the class of political 
laborers numerous in every nation, who are at 
the bottom of all our political corruption.) 
. "But I had other solaces; tobacco, which I 
smoked incessantly ; wine, which I drank to excess, 
but which never affected my head." (Of course 
not.) "Brandy or vodka "before each meal, and 



50 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

champagne or Burgandy with every course, so that 
my senses wandered in a perpetual fog." (Still, 
he asserts his head was not at all affected.) * * * 

"Charcot, no doubt, would have pronounced my 
wife an hysterical patient, and he would have told 
me that my condition was abnormal, and would 
have put us both under treatment. * * * * 

"Neither Charcot or any one else could work 
our cure. We were impervious alike to advice or 
bromide of potassium. * * * * We were 
like two convicts chained together, the rust of 
whose fetters eats into their flesh and poisons their 
blood. I did not know that most married couples 
passed their lives in like fetters." Do they? I 
ask. If so, then, heaven send a deliverer soon 
"to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the 
heavy burdens, and let the oppressed go free." 

Now, our unhappy pair, who, for the benefit 
of the children's health, had been living in the 
country for a while, return to town for the better 
advantage of their education; and I shall let 
Posdnicheff express himself on the change of 
situation : 

"In town the unhappy feel their misery less. 
One may live a hundred years there without being 
noticed, or may die in a month without exciting 
any remark. One hasn't the time to reflect on 



Reviewed by a Woman. 51 

one's fate. Business, society, art, the health and 
education of our children fill up our existence. 
*********** 

"We lived thus one winter. The next season 
an incident happened which, although it passed 
unnoticed, was the cause of everything that 
followed." 

He then relates that his wife's health being 
delicate "the rascally doctors" advised her to avoid 
pregnancy ; to which he objected strongly, but was 
forced to yield to her determination to follow the 
doctor's advice and build up her health. 

"And so two years passed. The advice given 
by our good friends, the doctors, had evidently 
succeeded. My wife had gained in flesh and put 
on the beauty of the early autumn. She knew 
it, and neglected no means of enhancing her love- 
liness. Hers was now that ripe luxuriance that 
is even more attractive to men than the freshness 
of early spring. She had all that splendor that 
surrounds a woman of thirty who lives well and 
bears no children. 

"The very sight of her made men tremble. She 
was like a spirited horse kept too long in the 
stable, and all at once ridden without a curb." 

Here, says our narrator, PosdnichefFs counte- 
nance seemed transfigured; his eyes glared with a 
strange expression; his beard and mustache seemed 



52 The " Kreutzer Sonata " 

fairly to bristle and his mouth grew tigerish. 
"Yes," resumed he, "her form had filled out under 
her new conditions, and her anxiety about her 
children seemed to disappear." 

As he was now rid of the doctor's calls and 
fees, one would think he should be happy. But 
now the demon of jealousy begins to take hold 
in earnest. In the exuberance of spirit consequent 
on her improved physical condition and lightened 
maternal care, she began to interest herself in her 
music, which, as all young mothers know, she 
had been obliged to neglect during the years of 
pressing maternal care. To use his own words : 

"She set herself eagerly at work practicing at 
the piano, which for years had been neglected." 

(A privilege, the sacrifice of which through all 
those years, no doubt, she had often regretted with 
the full force of the poet's lament: 

"The harp that once thro Tara's halls 
The soul of music shed, 
Now hangs as mute on Tara's ivalls 
As if that soul were dead") 

But to continue : "It was there, at the piano, the 
tragedy had its beginning. 

"The man appeared !" 

Mistaken Posdnicheff ! Before this he had begun 
to look on her every action with suspicion ; when, 



Reviewed by a Woman. 53 

judging from his own impurity of heart, and con- 
scious also of his own unlovableness, he decides 
that "love for a husband whose temper was soured 
with jealousy was no longer her ideal. She dreamed 
of quite another sort of affection — at hast I sus- 
pect she did" 

It was this "suspect" that led to the tragedy. 
Nay; it ivas the tragedy itself. That it w r as that 
murdered her by inches — driving the knife into 
her heart was but the finishing stroke. 

Even had not "the man" appeared her doom was 
sealed. There needed no "scoundrel musician" 
to bring about the inevitable. The 'family 
physician, if old enough to be her father; or a 
call made by the minister of her church, even were 
he a saint in purity, would have sufficed to feed 
the spirit of the green-eyed monster and work 
out the result. Indeed, he says, "If it had not- 
been him, it would have been another. If jealousy 
had not moved me to crime, some other passion 
would have done it. I insist upon one point : that 
any husband whose married life was like mine, 
must either live a life of gallantry, separated 
from his wife — kill himself, or her, as I did. If 
there are any exceptions to this, they are rare, 
because the end came with me. I had often come 
very near suicide, and my wife had frequently 
tried to poison herself.'' 



54 The " Kreutzer Sonata M 

Here I refrain from following in detail the 
circumstances leading to the shocking tragedy. 
It is not necessary to 'die purpose of this work 
and would be almost an infringement on the copy- 
right of the publishers of "Kreutzer Sonata." 
Suffice it to say (as it is the author's intention 
to show, no doubt) that there was no clear proof 
of criminality in the case; and even had there 
been, that poor wife would not have been to 
blame. She was, as it were, "crucified between 
two thieves" — hypnotized by two overpowering 
carnal wills. Her husband, by his jealous watch 
over her, kept amatory thoughts ever uppermost 
in her mind (this would be the case even were 
•she endeavoring to guard against suspicion) and 
to crown his madness, forced hex to receive into 
their home, as a social guest and musical com- 
panion, a known libertine, as if determined to 
triumph over her by bringing about a result he 
had forecast in his mind. Troukhatchevsky, seeing 
the situation of affairs — the connubial inharmony 
and disturbed domestic relations consequent 
thereon, and being captivated by the double at- 
traction of her physical charms and superior 
musical ability, strove, no doubt, to make the 
most of the opportunity it offered. He sought to 
win her from the pledge of fidelity to her husband, 
made at the marriage altar: "to love, honor and 



Reviewed by a Woman. 55 

cherish till death doth us part." But, who can 
continue to love one who strives to make himself 
unlovable, or honor one whose sense of honor is 
perverted, or to cherish a viper that is stinging 
her to death? But, after all, it remains unproven 
that he succeeded. However, on the trial of her 
husband for her murder, the Eussian courts gave 
him the full benefit of the possibility of criminal 
relations between the two, and acquitted him with 
no further punishment than the eleven months' 
imprisonment previous to the trial. 

To give his own words : "The court decided that 
I was a deceived husband, and that I had slain 
my wife to avenge the stain she had cast on 
my honor (that was the court's version of it), 
and so I was acquitted. I tried to explain the 
crime from my point of view, but the court came 
to the conclusion that I was trying to rehabilitate 
my wife's character." 

Ah ! Tolstoi, never did one small volume make 
so many telling points as this "Kreutzer Sonata" ! 
Courts used to pervert justice ! Aye ; Justice blind- 
folded is emblematic from more than one point 
of view. It represents two phases of its character, 
each definable onlv when considered in connection 
with the presiding dispenser of the majesty of 
the law. Though in the enactment of the tragedy 
the fury of a madman is exhibited, still, no attempt 



56 The "Kreutzer Sonata" 

was made to prove him dangerously insane and 
compel his confinement for the public safety. The 
passion-crazed wretch, after the merest farce of 
a trial, is allowed to run at large to select another 
victim. 

I cannot forbear giving another extract. — His 
return to consciousness after the frenzy had sub- 
sided, and his feelings in contemplating the horror 
of the deed he had committed : 

"I looked at the little ones, then at her poor 
face, so bruised and disfigured." (He had dealt 
her a fearful blow in the face before using the 
dagger) ; "and for the first time I forgot my 
wrongs, my pride ; for the first time I saw in her a 
human being — a sister. 

"And now everything that had maddened me 
appeared so small, and what I had done so terrible 
that I felt compelled to bow myself in reverence 
and to take her hand and say, 'Forgive me V 

"But I dared not. She was silent; her eyes 
were closed; she had not the strength to speak. 
Then her battered face began to twitch, to wrinkle, 
and she repulsed me feebly : 

"'Oh! why did you do it? Why?' 

" 'Forgive me V I groaned. 

" 'Yes ! if you had not killed me/ she burst 
out, with flaming eyes." 

Then farther: "I began to understand when I 



Reviewed by a Woman. 57 

saw her in her coffin. When I gazed upon her 
dead face I knew what I had done ; I understood 
that it was I, indeed, who had murdered her. 
I understood that it was I who had transferred 
that living, breathing being to a cold, motionless 
clod, and that I could not undo my work. 

"Whosoever has not shared such guilt cannot 
comprehend the horror of it. 

"If only I had known what I know now, I should 
not have married her. Never ! Never ! 

"That is what I have done, what I have gone 
through. At last I understand the words of the 
Holy Evangelist: 

" 'Whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after 
her, hath committed adultery with her already 
in his heart' — and not alone with a strange woman, 
but, above all, with his own wife/ " 



This closes my review of the "Kreutzer Sonata/' 
a remarkable work. In spite of its condemnation 
as unfit to go before the public, it has been widely 
read and duly commented upon. A number of 
comments coming under my notice I shall append 
to this work. It is well that we should know how 
public opinion stands in regard to a matter of 
such grave importance, bearing on — nay, I might 



58 The "Kreutzer Sonata" 

say, underlying the very foundation of the welfare 
of society. The book cannot be ignored. It has 
been translated into our language and has now 
a place in our literature. The name of its author 
will command for it a reading in circles where 
otherwise it might not find recognition. It will 
awaken thought on the subject in the mind of 
every intelligent person who reads it. And thought 
is a mighty power. To many it will appear sadly 
overdrawn and jet they will be forced to admit 
that it contains much bitter truth. 

A social order — or disorder, which makes two 
lives miserable — curses innocent offspring by being 
the result of such degrading association, should 
be looked into, and the true relation of the sexes 
studied as a science. An effort should be made to 
promote something as near akin to social purity 
as possible. This can never be attained under 
the present system as it is. Woman must be lifted 
to her rightful place. Her position, sexually, under 
the present social arrangement, deprives her of 
even the privilege of the female of the b 
creation. The latter is allowed to be true t< 
nature, woman in marriage is denied that ( 
given right. It is a disgrace to the civiliza 
of the nineteenth century to longer continue it 
without earnest, active effort for an improvement. 

To use the language of Posdnicheff a second 



Reviewed by a Woman. 59 

time : "It is horrible even to think of it, and yet 
people talk of liberty o'f the rights of woman V 9 

But I Tcnow that the way is preparing 

For that which assuredly shall he; 
Since none can thwart heaven s high purpose 

Or alter its righteous decree. 
Long the world has been groaning in travail, 

And the hour of Us birth-throes draws near—* 
■"Prepare ye to welcome the stranger, 

The Messiah who soon will appear! 
l Do ye ask, "When he comes shall ive tcnow himf 9 

Or, "What is the token to bef 
'She will come well credentialed by heaven — 

Nay, marvel ye not, it is she. 
Men talk of the Goddess of Justice, 

And Wisdom, and Mercy and Peace; 
If these must forever be emblems, 

0, let the vain mockery cease! 
And if Liberty, pride of the nation, 

With torch to enlighten the world, 
Is but a misrepresentation, 

Down let the fair statue be hurled! 
But nay; stay the hand! that creation 

Is surely a prophecy true; 
Through a heaven-direct inspiration 

Man budded more wise than he knew. 



60 The 4< Kreutzer Sonata/' 

And the time draweth nigh to reveal it; 

This cycle will shortly he run, 
And then comes the glorious era 

Of womanhood clothed with the sun. 

Adelaide Comstock. 
Ventuka, Cal. 



THE END. 



PUBLIC OPINION— AN APPENDIX. 

The "Kreutzer Sonata" — But why should any 
one quarrel with Count Tolstoi ? For this reason, 
his ideal is inapplicable even as an ideal to 
humanity generally; to the millions who fill the 
ranks, it is no more possible or useful as an ideal 
that an invisible star. On the other hand, to the 
few, to the elect who are their own masters, it 
has ceased to be an ideal, and has long since become 
a practical rule of daily life. The few are found 
both within and without the married state. Count 
Tolstoi has at any rate the courage to say what 
some men and women, married and single, have 
found out for themselves twenty years ago. — 
Woman's Penny Paper. 

If the "Kreutzer Sonata" could be read by the 
mothers of the land it would be well. It might 
settle in their minds a conviction that there is 
such a thing possible as holding her sons to the 
same code of morals she grafts into the lives of 
her daughters. Strange,, is it not, that we women 



62 Public Opinion— -An Appendix. 

must need be taught self-respect. But that is the 
quality which the world stands most in need of. 
Woman's duty to herself should be paramount. 
She is just beginning to speak and is somewhat 
amazed to find she can. True, her lips have been 
sealed since Eve allowed Adam to tell the story 
of the apple. The "Kreutzer Sonata" is a pioneer 
milestone in the reform road to social purity. — 
Haryot Hall in Woman's Chronicle. 

This little book has proven to be big in im- 
portance. It is classed as fiction, but is a rather 
curious and exceptional form of novel. Its author 
has become celebrated as a Eussian writer of 
powerful novels and a sponsor for original, philo- 
sophical or religious views. 

This latest, perhaps greatest, and best known of 
his published works is a story w r ritten with the 
purpose of awakening a wicked and degenerate 
people calling themselves civilized, moral and 
Christian, to their brutish, immoral, un-Christian 
and barbarous sins in the marriage relation. That 
the awakening is being accomplished there is no 
doubt; to what extent any reform will result 
to remains to be seen. 

The novelty of the book consists not so much 
in originality of its thought, as in method and 
boldness of presentation. What the multitude 



Public Opinion — An Appendix. 63 

would consider dull treatises on the hygiene of 
sexual physiology have less bluntly told it of the 
error of its ways, and Tolstoi's philosophical 
ultimatum of ultra-asceticism pointing to volun- 
tary obliteration of the human race is a species 
of oriental pessimism or Shakerism for which he 
w r ould not claim originality, and yet it is one of 
the features of this book which has made it a 
surprise, aroused criticism and insured its wide 
fcuccess. 

The book appeared here last spring, and that 
standard in literary criticism, The Critic, at once 
discovered in it "a moral earthquake/' and declared 
"that so daring a treatment of a daring theme 
had never before been attempted in literature. * * 
Brutal truths have been flung at us from every 
page, and yet, at the end, we cry out: "It is not 
true. Despite his marvelous genius, his flashes 
of insight, his tragic intensity of purpose and con- 
viction, Tolstoi can never be a true guide and 
master. * * * He leaves the world in ruins, 
in chaos and darkness. He alone is a teacher who 
can build as well as destroy, who holds up a 
torch for mankind causing the light to shine in 
dark places/' 

One of the best and briefest judgments upon the 
book we have seen was in a letter of onlv five 
written lines from one lady to another, saying: 



64 Public Opinion— An Appendix. 

"It is a terrible book, but the reason is because 
Ave all recognize the truths in it." The Christian 
Union reviewer, back in May, said, "While it deals 
with the relations of the sexes with a somewhat 
revolting frankness, it is quite free from that 
sensuous suggestiveness which sometimes furnishes 
an illicit attractiveness to readers of morbid 
imagination," and also, "we do not predict for it 
a large sale ; it is not in any sense entertaining." 

Such notices no doubt helped make for it a 
brisk dematfd, but the very large sale which it 
is having is mainly due to the gratuitous adver- 
tising of the postal department in the decision 
that it comes within the provisions of the law 
excluding obscene literature from the mails. Inas- 
much as these censors admit that it is "studiously 
and beautifully expressed," it seems curious that 
they should have singled it out for action while 
ignoring the numerous examples of "French 
Trash" and American imitations of them that are 
mainly built upon their "illicit attractiveness"; 
but they detected filth between the lines, and 
insults to virtuous (they mean married, of course,) 
men and women in the lines. We are not surprised 
that the hypocrisy of to-day can more easily bear 
with the suggestive emanations of prurient imagi- 
nations, and the so-called realistic descriptions 
of lower life, than holding the mirror up to nature 



Public Opinion — An Appendix. 65 

in a way to expose the curtained, legalized con- 
cupiscence of high life. 

The Buffalo Express says editorially, "We can't 
keep silent when official prudery, dunce-like 
obliquity of sense, is asserted in censorship of what 
the American public may read. * * * It is one 
of the most moral books ever written. It is supra- 
moral. The story is nothing; amusement-hunters 
will weary of it. It is a book for the serious 
minded/' 

George Gary Eggleston in the World shows how 
very differently he looks at it, and gives a fair 
sample of the views expressed adverse to the book 
as a literary production. He says: "The book is, 
in the first place, feeble. As a story it is void, 
formless; as a work of art, destitute of beauty; 
as a moral preachment, grossly immoral. It is 
not erotic — simply repulsive. It is daring without 
excuse and to no purpose. Nearly as I can make 
out, the moral purpose of the book is to teach 
mankind that the marriage relation is the most 
vicious one imaginable, without any possible 
sanctity and unredeemed even by the command 
to 'be fruitful and multiply/ a command which 
the novelist thinks it would be better to disobey. 
He insists that there neither is nor can be any 
distinction between love and lust, between marriage 
and the grossest of all possible relations." 



66 Public Opinion— An Appendix. 

The St. Louis Post-Despatch shows still another 
way in which it may strike a reader, in saying: 
"The avowed object of the work is not only to 
condemn all immorality, but to discourage 
romantic love as essentially immoral. Its analysis 
and exposition of passion are repulsive and are 
about as likely to excite licentious thoughts as the 
dissection of a human floater. Its very impulsive- 
ness and the shocking view it takes of all physical 
love have brought upon it the condemnation of 
critics. On the other hand, the moral purpose 
of the work is manifestly to urge upon men and 
women the adoption of-an ideal of chastity so 
lofty that it is declared impossible of achievement/' 

There was much expression of doubt among 
critics as to whether Tolstoi really entertained 
such a philosophy, for in the book it is put forth 
by a man who has sown wild oats in profusion in 
youth; married for lust, treated his wife like 
a harlot, murdered her in a fit of jealousy, and 
at last suddenly waked up to the enormity of his 
deeds and the folly of his life all through. One 
is not surprised that such a man has come to 
regard romantic love as moral depravity, marriage 
a curse rather than a blessing from any point 
of view, and universal celibacy as the only true 
morality; and it is not remarkable that critics 
should have w T ondered how much of such moral- 



Public Opinion — An Appendix. 67 

ag to bis villain (there is 
no hero in tlu v book) and how much of it he 
would himself vouch for. 

This doubt has been settled by a frank avowal 
from Tolstoi, in which he acknowledges at least 
the philosophy to be his own — though as to the 
experiences of the story he says not whether any 
part of them were his. An interviewer writes that 
Tolstoi was a man of the world till fifty years 
of age, that his peculiar, anarchistic and unique 
views, political, religious and social, are the out- 
come of a sudden awakening and a train of 
thought started in his mind by a "slumming" 
visit made by him with his son, in taking a 
census of the most miserably poor of a great city. 
He now resides on a large estate with an estimable 
wife, and has been the father of thirteen children, 
the last of which is only two years old. So we 
may believe that his ideas about celibacy are of 
very recent development, or that he himself thinks 
of it only as an ideal, not expecting to match 
his life with his creed. Indeed, he is quoted as 
writing very recently: "Chastity and celibacy, it 
is urged, cannot constitute the ideal of humanity 
because chastity would annihilate the race which 
strove to realize it, and humanity cannot set up 
as its ideal its own annihilation. It may be 
pointed out in reply that only that is a true ideal 



68 Public Opinion — An Appendix. 

which, being unattainable, admits of infinite 
gradation in degrees of proximity. " 

One so thinking could doubtless find abundant 
excuse (in human frailty and the hopelessness 
of attaining his ideal) for failing by several 
"degrees of proximity/' 

He claims to have arrived at his conclusions 
against his prejudices, by the operation of his 
reason in an analysis of pure Christianity, over 
a route that is probably parallel with if not identi- 
cal with the reasoning of the Shakers. 

To him the only cure for the social corruption 
and marital mistakes is a gradually dying out 
of mankind; thus he arrives at the pessimistic 
goal merely by one route, which others have reached 
before him in morbid contemplation of general 
problems of good and evil, light and darkness, 
finding no way to abolishing evil but by being 
swallowed up in darkness — the Nirvana of the 
Eastern cults. As the Herald savs : "His rhetoric 
bodes pervasive sophistry, and his logic is hope- 
lessly insane. There you are in the mire irre- 
trievably; your teacher has become a crank and 
his former eccentricities have developed into 
somthing like drivel." 

Since such a writer must be judged in the main 
by his conclusions, his final ideal, and since this 
notion of effacing sin by annihilation is his cul- 



Public Opinion — An Appendix. 69 

minatiiig note, we agree with Edmund Gosse, 
that acute mental exasperation is the effect of 
the tone of the entire book; that is " irr itating, 
disturbing, unwholesome" ; and yet "there is no 

lack of passages which, if the general structure 
of the book were not so preposterous, might be 
referred to with emphatic approval." 

Of course there is no danger that as a result 
of such teaching sinners will so far repent as to 
follow his advice, lead celibate lives and Im- 
patiently look forward to the death of the last, 
lone man; but that much of his book can be 
generally approved fails to be effective under the 
shadow of his acknowledged belief that all marital 
love is sin — all human life a grand failure. If 
he had left us even the chance to accord him the 
benefit of the doubt, to suppose that this frame 
of mind was merely pictured as a natural result 
of an uncontrolled and debauched life, then we 
could regard that life as a terrible example, and 
aim to avoid its grand mistakes ; but, as it stands, 
the thoughtless reader is likely to conclude that 
a philosopher preaching such extreme crarikism 
cannot give advice worth heeding anyway, or that 
since his ideal is (according to himself and every- 
body else) unattainable, it isn't worth striving 
toward even ; while the thoughtful reader wonders 
if the author's peculiar cerebration may not mean 



jo Public Opinion — An Appendix. 

that there is a pathological state to account for 
that Posdnicheff and Tolstoi are identical in 
something more than conclusions, and that while 
such an individual may be an interesting and 
unfortunate clinical specimen, he is in no condition 
to father a philosophy. A mind with much to 
repent of. operating in a body suffering from 
premature decrepitude, and basing its operations 
on the creed of an ascetic fanatic, cannot be 
expected to evolve a philosophy of real utility to 
humanity, or promotive of its present needs. 

The "Kreutzer Sonata" is interesting as a patho- 
logical study, a portrayal of the wrecking of 
lives on the rocks of debased love, and may serve 
as a horrid example to save others from a like 
fate, but it ought offset by another book, 

from a sane mind in a sound body, based upon 
the science and philosophy of to-day, and depicting 
the smooth course of a true love on a healthful, 
physiological plane ; it would be less startling, less 
true to life as it is, but if equally bold and well 
told would be more wholesome and useful in 
pointing the better way/' — The Health 
Monthly. 



W17 



«■ * 
















o " o 






• # • <vr V^ 



* 4T ^ •©BOM «? ^ ^OIak* AT ^ 



r w 






^°^ 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 



C> **«^«* CV Treatment Date: Jan. 2007 

V /J^& ^ a>° ■ PreservationTechnologies 

7~^MRte3$ * \0 ^CY *• A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 






s*^ • 



^9«" 



1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 1 6066 
(724)779-2111 



.V 



<> *'77i» ,0 V 



r ^ ** 



I 




4*' ••" 










< * v c O • « 



» **, 










INC 



6 V 



I Ir 



•}•.•;.>! H'..- 



■ 

■ 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




DDD5HED5Elb 




■ 



;*. 






■ 



H I 



w 



■ 



ii'i'l'! ^| 















■ 



